Alfie Bloom and the Secrets of Hexbridge Castle (6 page)

“I
still
don't know,” said Alfie. “Dad does though, and if he doesn't tell me soon he can sleep in the cellars!”

Aunt Grace laid out sandwiches for dinner in the Great Hall. Granny made Alfie take the largest chair at the head of the table. As everyone tucked in hungrily, Alfie asked something he had been thinking about since that morning but had deliberately saved until his granny and auntie were present.

“Dad, could we have a castle-warming party for the whole village? Please?”

A look of horror spread over his dad's face as the twins cheered.

“It's a nice idea, Alfie,” blustered his dad. “But that's a lot of people, and you know I'm no good at organizing parties. Remember your surprise tenth birthday?” Alfie remembered only too well. His dad had forgotten to send out the invites. Alfie hadn't actually minded at all. He had a feeling only Amy would have turned up anyway, and he wasn't sure what people would have made of his dad's peculiar sandwiches and science-based party games.

“Oh, go on, Will!” said Granny. “If you don't, everyone in the village will find an excuse to pop up here at some point. This way you can get it all over with in one go.”

“Well, I suppose it'll be a good way for Alfie to make some new friends before starting school.”

“Right then, we're agreed,” announced Aunt Grace before he could back out. “Let's make it six o'clock on Saturday evening. We'll put up posters in the village.”

Alfie beamed as his dad gave in.

“Oh, well,” he said, perking up a little bit. “The documents Caspian Bone gave us mention that we'll have a butler to help out around here. Maybe he'll be good at organizing parties?”

A butler!
thought Alfie in shock. What next? This was certainly a whole world away from their former life.

The twins had talked their way into staying over and insisted on setting up inflatable mattresses in Alfie's room so that they could all spend their first night in the castle together. After Uncle Herb's truck disappeared down the hill, Alfie's dad announced that he had a little surprise. He led them to a smaller room just off the Great Hall.

“Ta-daa!” he beamed, swinging open the door. “I call it the Abernathy Room.”

Alfie laughed in amazement at the familiar sight of all of their living-room furniture from Abernathy Terrace set out in exactly the same way as in the flat. The slightly worn modern furniture was dwarfed by the room and contrasted with the sumptuous fabrics on the walls, but Alfie thought it was brilliant. He flopped on to the soft sofa and smiled up at his dad.

“We're home.”

 

The twins reluctantly went home early the next morning. Alfie had never seen his dad so excited as he helped him to set up a workshop in a lower room that looked out just above the moat. He seemed fascinated by everything in the castle. Much as Alfie had enjoyed spending time with his dad, he could tell that he was itching to get back to his own work, so he left him to it and spent the rest of the morning exploring on his own.

Alfie was still puzzled about who had modernized the castle. The alterations didn't look out of place, but they seemed to have been carried out by someone who didn't exactly understand their purpose. The light switches didn't operate light bulbs, instead making the torches set in the walls burst into flame, even when removed from their brackets.

The big light switch in the Great Hall did something very interesting. When Alfie flicked it upwards, a hatch opened above the huge chandelier and a mechanical arm descended. With a click, a little flame appeared at its tip and the chandelier began to turn slowly so that the candles were lit one by one. When the switch was flicked the other way, the arm emerged with a snuffer to put out the candles. A small wheel on the wall lowered the chandelier so that the candles could be replaced.

When Alfie finally found the main bathroom, he was confronted with an enormous brass bath standing on clawed feet in the centre of the room. A wooden archway towered above it, and this was covered in dials and wheels that altered the water pressure and made water shower down into the bath. His first shower was so cold that he leapt straight out with a yelp. “Argh, freezing!” The water stopped flowing as if someone had heard him. The pipes began to clank and, with a whooshing noise, steaming water rained down into the bath. Was the temperature setting voice-activated? “Too hot!” he shouted. The steam began to dissipate and the water cooled to a nice warm temperature. Alfie hopped back in. “Perfect. Er, thanks,” he called out to the bathroom in general. The pipes seemed to make a little knocking noise in response.

Behind a tapestry at the end of the first-floor corridor was the door to the southern tower Caspian had mentioned. It opened with a loud and satisfying
creak
, revealing a stone staircase spiralling up into the darkness. Fighting his curiosity, he locked the door and pulled the tapestry back across it. It could wait until his cousins' next visit. He also saved the network of cellars until later. Dark, creepy places weren't as scary with other people, and he wanted to make the exploration of his new home last as long as possible.

Alfie wasn't sure how he knew, but he could swear that the castle seemed happy to have him there. He wondered if it was possible for a building to feel lonely.

A round room on the first floor felt strangely comforting. The walls were painted sky blue with intricate plants and flowers in soft colours. He stayed in that room for some time, reading comics on the window seat overlooking Lake Archelon.

“Alfie, where are you?” echoed his dad's distant voice.

“Up here!” Alfie kept on calling so that his dad could follow his voice. He doubted he'd ever get used to such a huge home.

“Funny I should find you here,” said his dad as he appeared at the door with a tray of tea, and slightly burnt fish-finger sandwiches.

“Why's that?” asked Alfie as he made room on the window seat and tucked hungrily into the late lunch.

“When you were little, we told you that you were born in Hexbridge when we were visiting your Aunt and Uncle. Well, that was only part of the story. You were born here, in this room, over six hundred years ago.”

Alfie couldn't believe what he was hearing. “Wait, what? You're joking, right?”

“Far from it. Caspian confirmed something I'd long started to believe was a weird distorted memory.”

“I don't understand – you're actually serious?”

“Utterly. Now it's time I told you about it, and it's a very strange story, so I'm afraid you'll have to be patient with your questions while I tell it.”

Alfie nodded, still dumbstruck.

“Remember when we brought you here for your birthday a few years ago?”

“I remember,” said Alfie. “There was a big Halloween party in the marketplace. Granny said it was a harvest festival.”

“That's right, the Samhain harvest festival. It was taking place three weeks before you were due to be born and your mum didn't want to miss it. The hustle and bustle was a bit much, so we walked up here where it was quiet. She loved to see the castle in the moonlight. We sat next to the moat eating toffee apples and she told me one of your granny's stories about a prehistoric sea turtle that lived in Lake Archelon.”

Alfie gazed down through the window into the dark waters of the lake and smiled. Granny Merryweather never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

“Halfway through, she stopped and grabbed my arm. You were on your way.” He smiled down at Alfie. “You've always been impatient.”

“I was about to run down and get the car when we realized the hill was surrounded by a thick mist. Everything had gone quiet – the music and voices from the village had stopped. I didn't know what to do. Then the castle drawbridge began to lower. There were lights and voices coming from inside. Before we knew it, a group of women had rushed out and were hustling us inside.”

Alfie sat in stunned silence. He hadn't heard any of this before. The castle had opened for his parents on the day he was born? And the mist – was it something like his experience on the last day of term? He stared up at his dad, hanging on every impossible word.

“Your mum was brought into this very room, I was amazed at how calm she seemed. I tried to follow, but the woman in charge made it very clear I was to wait outside. I spent two hours out there, waiting for news. That's when I really started to think about this place. The people I had seen were wearing clothes from hundreds of years ago. I started to wonder if they were ghosts!

“The next time one of the women ran past, I asked how long people had been living in the castle. She said that it had been lived in since it was built fifteen years ago. When I told her that the castle was hundreds of years old, she laughed and said, “Well, of course
you
would say that, but here and now, it is fifteen years old.”

“So, what … you time travelled?” said Alfie. He half expected his dad to top it off by saying he had learned to fly too. “How? Was it something to do with the castle?”

“I don't know. I didn't ask, because that's when I heard you crying. The sound knocked every other thought clean out of my head. The ladies filed out of here and I came in to find your mum holding you all bundled up in a blanket. We couldn't believe how perfect you were for something so tiny. A few minutes later there was a knock on the door.”

“Orin Hopcraft?” whispered Alfie. His dad nodded. “What did he look like?”

“He was wearing a tunic and had thick, grey-brown hair tied back with a strip of leather and a long, plaited beard. It was difficult to tell his age; he seemed old but there was something very youthful about him.”

“Emily said that he was a druid. Was he really?” asked Alfie. He had read about druids at school: they were teachers, magicians, astrologers, warriors and philosophers. He couldn't believe his dad might have actually met one.

“Perhaps the last, from what he told us. He said you were a child of two times, as much at home in his time as ours. But because your mother and I didn't belong there, the universe wouldn't let us stay much longer. Then he said that he had something to give you for safekeeping. His right hand glowed with a white light and he touched his fingertips to your forehead. The light seemed to be absorbed into you, and then everything around us started to fade.

“I woke up in a hospital chair. Jenny was sleeping in a bed nearby with you tucked up in a cot beside her. If it hadn't been for the blanket you had been wrapped in we might have thought we had imagined it all. The only person we told was your granny – she's the only one that would have believed us. After your mum died, I hardly thought about it again. It was just a strange, hazy memory until a few days ago.”

Alfie sat hugging his legs, chin resting on his knees. He had hardly moved during the tale and sat deep in thought trying to piece everything together.

“So, the thing he did with my head, did he tell you what it was?” asked Alfie.

“There wasn't time. We thought it was some sort of blessing.”

The amazing story whirled around Alfie's head.
A child of two times…
He suddenly remembered their first meeting with Caspian. Hadn't the solicitor said something about him timeslipping on the last day of term? Alfie decided it was time to tell his dad about the strange, misty place he had been transported to, but he strategically left out the fight with Vinnie and Weggis and the fact that he was nearly hit by a car.

“This is incredible,” said his dad. “Caspian was right. You must have timeslipped, back to before the city existed and most of the land was forest!”

“You're seriously saying that you think I time travelled? How is that even possible?”

“Think about it. Although you grew up in our time, you were born in Orin's. Who knows? Perhaps this gave you some kind of natural ability to travel in time. The world is a magnificent, magical place with so much left to be discovered. The more you discover, the less you realize you know. Maybe Caspian can tell us more, although getting answers out of that man is like trying to squeeze water from a stone.”

Alfie wondered what it meant to be a natural-born time traveller, and if he'd ever be able to do it again. As he started on the last fish-finger sandwich, something more important hit him. “Hold on. If I'm really over six hundred years old, I'm even older than you!”

“You may have been born hundreds of years ago, but you're still eleven,” laughed his dad. “So don't try pulling rank on me any time soon.”

 

Following his dad's revelations, Alfie spent most of the afternoon with his eyes squeezed tightly shut as he tried to force himself back in time by sheer willpower. He finally gave up when all he managed to achieve was a headache.

At six o'clock that evening, Ashford the butler arrived in Hexbridge Castle's entrance hall. He was tall and slim with dark hair carefully smoothed back into a short ponytail and wore an elegant dark green suit with white gloves. Alfie thought it looked like something that someone who had only seen pictures of butlers in fairy-tale picture books might wear. His behaviour was a little odd too.

“Alfie and William Bloom,” he said (a little grumpily, Alfie thought). He shook Alfie and his dad's hands, looking them up and down and scanning their faces as though scrutinizing every inch of their appearance. “How strange it is to meet you like this. For a man with absolutely no sense of humour, Caspian will have his little jokes.” Alfie eased his hand back from Ashford's grasp and wondered what on earth he was talking about. “Well, here I am. So I suppose I had better start buttling. I take it I'm down here?” Alfie and his dad stared at each other in surprise as Ashford did something to the panel work under the stairs and opened a door that they hadn't even known was there. They watched as he swept downstairs with his suitcases.

After selecting a room and making himself at home on the lower floor, Ashford went straight to the kitchen and began to prepare a delicious-smelling dinner. Alfie's dad's request to have his meal brought to his workshop was firmly refused.

“Sir, I will not collect half-eaten plates of food from all over this castle. You will eat in the Great Hall at the same time as your son.”

Ashford surprised Alfie with a conspiratorial wink. Alfie was very pleased with this rule. He hardly saw his dad when he was wrapped up in his inventions and was very afraid that he would soon fall into his old behaviour, despite no longer needing to work several jobs. He smiled gratefully at the curious butler.

 

On Saturday, Ashford seemed to be making up for his initial slightly resentful attitude by conjuring fantastic dishes out of thin air. Wonderful smells drifted through the castle all day and set Alfie's stomach constantly rumbling. Alfie thought his aunt seemed a little put out when she turned up to find that she wasn't needed in the kitchen.

That evening, dozens of guests began to gather outside the castle long before the party was even due to start. When the clock in the Great Hall struck six o'clock, Alfie helped Ashford swing open the castle's heavy oak doors and lower the drawbridge. Aunt Grace's best friend, Gertie Entwhistle, was first across, carrying a huge cake dripping with chocolate. The crowd flooded over the drawbridge after her, murmuring with excitement.

“Welcome to Hexbridge Castle,” announced Ashford with a small bow. “May I introduce your host, Master Alfie Bloom.”

Everyone shook hands with Alfie and his dad as they streamed past, eager to see the inside of the castle for the first time.

Quite a few of the children at the party were pupils at Wyrmwald House, the school that Alfie was due to start in September with his cousins. They were all very excited to meet him and clamoured for his attention, asking questions about the castle. Alfie felt uncomfortable at first – he wasn't used to being the centre of attention. He had been known as the boy whose mum died at his last school and it had left him very lonely. He began to feel a lot better as he answered their questions. No one pitied or avoided him here. In Hexbridge he was known only as the boy who had inherited a castle.

He liked everyone Robin and Madeleine introduced him to very much – particularly the twin's neighbour, Jimmy Feeney, and Madeleine's best friend, Holly Okoye. He spent quite a while showing them around and even let them see one of the secret passages he had found. He wasn't sure if he was imagining it or not, but there was a sense of joy in the air, as though the castle was happy at having so much noise and laughter in its halls.

“Don't look now, Alfie,” said Holly suddenly, “but Murkle and Snitch have caught your dad.”

Alfie turned to see his dad standing between two very stern-looking women.

“Whoa, who are they?”

“You haven't heard?” exploded Jimmy. “Rob and Mads should have warned you by now. You don't want to go to Wyrmwald without knowing a thing or three about Murkle and Snitch!”

“We wanted to let him settle in first,” said Robin. Alfie noticed him nudge Jimmy with his elbow.

“What's so bad about them?” he asked, eyeing the women nervously.

“They've been joint headmistresses at Wyrmwald House for years,” replied Robin. “They even taught Mum and Dad. They're sisters and are supposed to be a bit strict, but Jimmy always exaggerates.”

“Pah! You wait till September, then you'll see if I'm exaggerating or not! My brothers and sisters are always being put in detention for nothing.”

“Nothing? Really?” laughed Robin. Jimmy ignored him and continued. “Did you hear what they did to Charlie Belcher last year? My sister Sinéad saw it all, didn't you?” The tall dark-haired girl next to Alfie nodded.

“Sure did. Snitch thought she saw Charlie stealing someone's desert, so they forced him to make himself sick and then made him run around the playing field for the whole afternoon.”

“That can't be true,” said Alfie.

“I didn't steal it,” said a voice. The crowd of children parted to reveal the red-faced Charlie Belcher. “I swopped Ben Carter a trading card for it, but they wouldn't believe me.”

“What did your parents do? You did tell them?”

“As soon as I got home. They went straight to the school to complain. When they came back, they were acting funny and grounded me for telling lies.”

“Same thing happened when my Ma went down there after they confiscated my brother Cormac's new red trainers,” said Jimmy. “She was fuming when she left, but she came back all weird and told Cormac off for losing them.”

Alfie smiled politely at his new friend's exaggerations. Still, he decided that he would have to be very careful not to get on the wrong side of his new head teachers.

“I'm not afraid of them,” said a smartly suited boy in a haughty voice. “My father would have them sacked if they tried anything on me.”

“Oh, shut it, Edward,” said Jimmy. “You wouldn't dare mess with them. You cried your eyes out last week when Mrs Sneesby confiscated your spud gun.” Some of the others laughed loudly. Edward went bright red.

“I wasn't crying! I had hay fever.” He stomped off before Jimmy could accuse him of lying. Alfie watched him join his equally haughty-looking parents. Edward's mother was prodding a sausage roll as though it was a large slug that had slithered on to her plate.

“That's Lord and Lady Snoddington,” said Robin as Alfie noticed Edward's dad glaring around at the castle as though it had just insulted him. “They own Hexbridge Hall, the big manor house outside the village. Edward's always bragging about living in the biggest house for miles.”

“Not any more,” snorted Madeleine. “Bet he hates you, Alfie!”

From the way Edward was scowling at him, Alfie was sure she was right.

“Alfie!” called his dad, beckoning frantically from across the room. “Come and meet your new head teachers.”

Alfie groaned and headed over.

“Good luck,” whispered Holly.

“Alfie, this is Miss Evelyn Murkle and Miss Edwina Snitch.” Alfie could understand why his dad seemed a bundle of nerves as he made the introductions. Although their appearance was very different, each of the women looked as mean and malicious as the other. Miss Murkle was short and round with red cheeks and wild frizzy hair. Miss Snitch was tall, pale and wore her dark hair scraped back into a tight bun. Her nose was sharp, her fingernails were very sharp but Alfie soon realized that the sharpest thing about her was her voice.

“A pleasure to meet you, young man.” Her voice set his teeth on edge like nails scraping down a blackboard.

“A pleasure indeed,” added Miss Murkle with a grimace that clearly stated it wasn't a pleasure at all. He shuffled back a little to try to put his dad between him and the two intimidating women.

“Your headmistresses have been asking all kinds of questions about the castle,” said his dad. “Why don't you give them a guided tour? You can ask about your new school.”

“That will be unnecessary,” the sisters answered at exactly the same time. Alfie thought Miss Snitch looked thoroughly disgusted at the idea of spending time with him. “Now if you would excuse us.” They turned and strode away, each in perfect time with the other. Alfie heard his dad give a huge sigh of relief.

“Ahem!” Alfie turned to see Lord and Lady Snoddington and a sulky Edward. Ashford was standing in front of them. Lord Snoddington prodded the butler in the back and snapped, “Go on, man, get on with it!”

Alfie thought he saw a sudden sharpness in Ashford's face. It passed as quickly as it had appeared and the butler adopted a charming smile. “Sirs,” he announced, “Lord Tarquin and Lady Lucretia Snoddington would have me make their presence known to you.”

Alfie gazed wistfully over at his friends and tried to remain polite as Lord and Lady Snoddington rambled on about their heritage and quizzed his dad on the Blooms' lack of it. They seemed determined to find out how they had inherited the castle. Alfie decided not to mention Orin Hopcraft and got around their questions by telling them that it used to belong to a distant relative.

Eventually, conversation turned to what Lord Snoddington referred to as gentlemanly pursuits.

“So, Alfred, have you ever been fox hunting? It's a fine sport. Young Edward has been riding alongside me since his eighth birthday. How would you like to come on the next hunt?”

Edward managed to look even sulkier.

“No thank you, Lord Snoddington.” said Alfie. “Isn't it illegal? Besides, I like foxes. Me and Mum used to leave food out for one that visited our garden.”

“Why on earth would you encourage a fox into your garden?” Lady Snoddington's spindly eyebrows looked as though they were going to disappear into her hair. “They're vermin! Disease-ridden vermin!”

“I think you'll find that foxes are very intelligent creatures,” said a woman with sparkling green eyes and vivid red hair. Alfie liked the way she wore it rolled back from her face like an old-fashioned film star.

“
Pffht!
I guessed you'd be of that ilk,” exclaimed Lord Snoddington. He feigned a glance at an invisible watch and announced, “Goodness, is that the time? Thank you for inviting us into your humble home, young Alfred. Our chauffeur is waiting. Wouldn't do to leave the Bentley in view of all and sundry.”

“Bloody tree-huggers,” Alfie heard him mutter as they left.

“I'd like to assure you that there are some relatively normal people in the village,” said the red-haired woman with a grin. She held out her hand. “Hazel Reynard. I teach English and history at Wyrmwald House.”

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Reynard,” said Alfie's dad. Alfie followed his dad's lead and shook the teacher's hand a little clumsily.

“Miss Murkle and Miss Snitch might not have wanted the grand tour, but I'd love to see the library if Alfie doesn't mind showing me around instead?”

At that moment a slightly worse-for-wear Gertie Entwhistle dragged Alfie's dad away to judge whether her beetroot-and-chocolate cake or Mrs Arbuckle's lemon meringue pie was nicer.

The twins joined them as Alfie led the way upstairs. Nearing the library, he was surprised to hear voices coming from inside. Miss Reynard put her finger to her lips and they crept towards the door to listen. It sounded as though furniture was being moved and drawers opened and closed.

“There must be something round here that can tell us where it is and how to open it,” said an irritated voice.

“Of course there is – you're not looking hard enough,” snapped someone else.

“Do you think there's a key?”

“That's why we're looking, to find out! Now stop wasting time and keep a lookout. Brats are swarming over this place like ants, and that Merryweather woman seems to be there every time I turn around.”

Footsteps approached the door. Miss Reynard quickly flung it open and breezed into the room as though in mid sentence. “… and
that
is the gruesome reason it is called a portcullis. Oh, hello, Miss Murkle. Sorry, did the door hit you? Miss Snitch, how lovely to see you at a social event. Have you met our host and his cousins? They'll be attending Wyrmwald in September.”

Alfie was growing more and more impressed with Miss Reynard. Murkle rubbed her bruised nose and glared. Snitch's voice cut through the silence.

“Yes, we have met the boy. I'm afraid we got rather lost and noticed several children running amok in here. We sent them packing and are making sure they haven't damaged anything.”